


Shimmer

by LuminescentWhirlpool



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Developing Relationship, Exotic Dancer, F/F, F/M, Mutual Pining, Robin has a SECRET, Slice of Life, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-02 21:34:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16795177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuminescentWhirlpool/pseuds/LuminescentWhirlpool
Summary: Chrom can't help but wonder why the girl in his History of Ylissean Literature class is nearly always covered in glitter.





	1. About a Girl, or Purple Never Looked so Good

**Author's Note:**

> lol we're doing this baby.
> 
> there's no amount of explaining i can do that'll make this sound less crazy but:  
> \- this is a slice of life story more than anything, there won't be anything TOO salacious here (famous last words lmao) but this was an idea i had bouncing in my head for a while so here's to attempting churning it out  
> \- my knowledge of higher education is solely rooted in US college systems, so i apologize if it may seem too U.S influenced--i did my best to keep that at a minimum.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin comes to Chrom's rescue when he shows up to class pencil-less. A homecoming party is on the horizon, and Lissa wants in on the action.

Her name is Robin, Chrom finds out, and though he can't exactly point out why, he finds himself inexplicably drawn to her.

She's sitting at her desk, flipping through her lavender-colored binder, long white hair cascading over its contents as she reads through it raptly. It's the first day of classes at Ylisse University, and Chrom doesn't mean to stare, but damn he can't help it.

Luckily for him (or not) he left his bag with his folder and writing utensils in his car, which was parked all the way on the other side of campus. (It took him about 30 minutes to find a park, and he had to settle for Parking Garage B, which every YU student knew was the worst fucking garage, he should just listen to Emmeryn and start taking the bus as she suggested.)

The professor walks into class, and thus Chrom's realization of being pencil-less is made.

He is not about to walk back to his car, so he turns to her, the nearest person sitting to him. He whispers without much thought, "Um excuse me? Could I borrow a pencil?" and leans over.

A second passes as she finishes over the papers in her binder. Chrom worries that she hadn’t heard him—she’s so caught up in her reading. She then snaps her gaze over at him, and their eyes meet. She blinks, almost looking startled, and immediately squeaks back a "Sure!" turning away to dig into her (freaking massive) black bag for something to give this stranger.

Catching a glimpse of her face, Chrom is immediately smitten. Smacked with it like a fastball at the World Series.

Her eyes are a dark mahogany-brown, and her hair, a stark snow-white that contrasted wonderfully against the gold-hue of her skin. She’s beautiful, and Chrom feels a wave of thunder smack straight in his gut just by looking at her. She seems so familiar, at the same time so peculiar, he finds himself just staring at her hoping he can find some kind of _clue._

He doesn't even realize she's waving a pen in his face until she pokes his shoulder with it.

"Oh!" he flips back to the real world, immediately reaching for the pen she has offered, and accepts it. He flips it over in his hand briefly, examining it. _Purple ink,_ the label on it says.

"Thank you."

"No problem," she smiles, (wow!) before immediately cocking her head, staring at his empty desk and his new lone pen. "…think you'll need some paper, too?"

Chrom stares down at his desk.

Yeah, maybe.

Before he can answer, she offers him a few sheets of paper. That beautiful smile of hers stretching even wider.

“Here you go.”

“Thanks.” Chrom takes the papers, looking at her small hands with perfectly square nails. He places the sheets on his desk, then shifts to look her in the face, “I’m Chrom, by the way. And you’re….?”

“…Robin.” She answers, and Chrom swears her eyes sparkle as she does.

“Robin.” He parrots, committing her name to memory. He can’t help the huge grin that plasters all over his face.

He sticks a hand out for her to shake, letting his smile flash at full-force, “Nice to meet you, Robin. Thanks for your generosity.”

She moves her hand to accept his, shaking her head to the sides, “O-oh, it’s no problem! Nice to meet you too.”

After their hands pull away, she turns to resume sitting forward in her seat, diving her eyes right back into her papers, seemingly tuning him out. Chrom quickly mulls over for a thing to say before his chances to continue the conversation end. He’s not ready to finish talking to her yet.

He opens his mouth, seconds from blurting out whatever was at the top of his head when the professor, a beady and slender woman with a haircut that only tells Chrom she no longer has time for anything in her life besides her work, immediately starts passing out her syllabus, reciting its contents mechanically and precisely. She doesn’t need to look at the pages, she knows it by heart at this point.

_Raus, was her name wasn’t it?_ Chrom thinks. _Yeah. Professor Raus._

The guy with the man-bun who sits one seat ahead of Chrom passes a copy back to him, and Chrom quickly glances over the top of the page:

> _Ylisse University_
> 
> _Professor Raus_
> 
> _History of Ylissean Literature: Literature of Naga and other Minor Deities._
> 
> _Course Number 07842_

_…_

Chrom sighs, unable to continue reading the rest of the syllabus. He smacks his copy against his head; he was so caught up with the lovely _Robin_ that he forgot all about that this was the first day of classes and he had to stick this and three other classes out until the end of Spring.

Great.

Thank gods this would be his final semester.

Chrom never considered himself a school-type. It’s not as if he did poorly, he did just fine during grade school and high school, even taking honors and ap courses—he just never really liked it. Instead of studying, he would always opt to hang out with friends, or learn a new sport. Or poke at some random critters he found in the grass outside. Or... literally anything else _._ He couldn’t be bothered to sit down at one place for hours at a time. His sister, Emmeryn, would joke that if he weren’t constantly moving, he’d probably explode. He can’t deny that. If he were to be honest with himself, He probably only got through high school as smoothly as he did because of Emmeryn and Frederick, a friend of his family for as long as he could he remember. The two of them would hound Chrom consistently to stay on top of doing his homework, which with all the running around he did, was more than likely to forget.

Which brings Chrom to where he is now; tuning out the professor, continuing to sneak glances at Robin.

Her bag is huge, Chrom wonders what on earth she’s carrying in it. She has it placed by her feet, leaning against her boots. He tries to imagine a small girl like her lugging it around.

_She must be the bookish-type,_ he thinks as he continues watching her. She’s listening to the professor intently, nodding her head and highlighting her syllabus as she goes. Chrom has yet to even finish going over his. Maybe he should.

He forces himself to tear his gaze from Robin and look back to the syllabus. From color and beauty back to black, white and drab.

> _No electronic devices allowed during class. This includes cell phones/tablets/laptops/pda devices. If you must answer a call, please step outside to do so._

.....

> _Any form of cheating will not be tolerated. Plagiarism is a form of cheating. Cheating will result in automatic failure in the course and potential expulsion from the college--_

This is the obvious stuff. Who even uses PDAs anymore? He flips the front page over and scans for the rubric and exam dates.

> _All examinations will be essays on related topics to the course material. No make-up dates will be given. No late work is accepted._

_Huh._

Chrom glances up, the professor continues to rattle the points of her syllabus off from memory. At that moment, she explains the acceptable writing styles for the assignments. She faces the left side of the class, Chrom is on the right. He pounces on the opportunity, shoving his hand into his back pocket, pulling out his phone. He sets a reminder for each exam date. After accidentally sleeping through a midterm during his first year, Chrom takes no chances.

After confirming the reminders, he sees a notification for 36 missed messages. He initially panics, but convinces himself there’s no point in trying to catch up with it now, he’ll get to it after class. Chrom closes his phone and returns it to his pocket as the professor sets down her syllabus. Stepping to the middle of the classroom, she takes in a breath.

“Alright. Now that we’ve covered the syllabus and the required texts—make sure you have them all by next class meeting—I would like to see how much everyone already knows about the history of religious literature in Ylisse.”

She shoots a glare at a student who had pulled out his phone, he immediately puts it back.

Refocusing, the professor addresses the students once more, “As I was saying. Discussion will be a crucial element in this class, so having effective discussions with classmates will be critical for success. If you are not sure on how to do this, actually reading the required texts would be a good place to start.”

At her words, the students shift in their seats. Some stick their heads into their folders or books, pretending as though they heard nothing. Others begin eyeing who they think can be a good pair-up. The tension is palpable as they wait for the inevitable. The first-day icebreaker activity.

Raus’s lips skew into a hint of a smile, the typical pseudo-sadist-professor expression, “Turn to your nearest classmate and introduce yourself. Discuss what you know of historical Ylissean literature, of Naga, and all the writings dedicated to her. Why are you taking this course? What do you want to learn? I’ll give ten minutes.”

She heads to her desk and sits down, the classroom erupts into sounds of people turning their bodies to face each other and awkward, mumbled chatter.

This is how this normally would go. Chrom would probably turn to his neighbor and give them a brief response. In return, he’d receive a similarly brief, or disinterested response. The two would awkwardly nod their heads, acknowledging the other’s answer, turn back to their desks, and ignore each other for the rest of the semester.

But today was different.

Because to the left of him was _Robin._

And she was not uninteresting.

He turns to her, and she’s already looking his way. She looks at him expectantly, and Chrom bows his head to her slightly, deferring himself to going second. “You go first,” he smiles.

“Oh no, please, you.” She smiles back in an impermeable kind of way, and Chrom realizes she won’t accept going first. She’s going to use his answer to gauge how much she’ll reveal for herself. Fair game.

He decides to be frank, “I’m not much of a huge classical reader,” he begins, scratching at his neck. “I’ve mostly only read what was required in school growing up. My parents were of faith pretty strongly, so I’m familiar with Naga and some of the writings. My sister is much better at this stuff though—she actually studied it.”

Robin nods her head as he finishes. She glances over to a pair of students talking to one another animatedly—Chrom can’t make out what they’re saying—but when she turns to face him again, her expression relaxes somewhat.

“Well,” she starts with something akin to a snort; it endearingly rings in Chrom’s ears, “I don’t know very much about Naga. Or Ylissean literature at all for that matter.”

“Really?” Chrom asks, slightly surprised. He didn’t expect to meet anyone in this class who wasn’t familiar with Ylisse’s religious culture, “Is that why you’re taking this?”

“…Somewhat.”

“Somewhat?” he raises a brow.

“Yes…I, uh, I was an international student when I started YU, and it was required for me to take a few courses pertaining to Ylissean culture to stay in the program. I’m a full-citizen now, so I’m not obligated to do that anymore, but honestly… living out here now—I think it’s helpful. Just for me to get by.”

So...she was foreign. Now that he thought about it, it made sense; he could pick up a bit of an accent, but it was slight. He probably wouldn’t have noticed until she said something. It was like losing something you forgot you had; only notice it’s gone until someone points it out. That was definitely something Chrom would follow her up on, but there was a more pressing issue she had revealed-- so naturally he blurts out, “Wait, so you’re not taking this for any requirement?!”

The disbelief in his voice was hard to mask. She giggles again, a little less guarded.

“No. You are though, I presume?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, “I’m taking this in place for a class I dropped my first year. I never got around to it until now. Time kinda flies, y’know?” He doesn’t mention he slept through the midterm.

“Ah, absolutely. Same class?”

“No. That class was on contemporary writing.”

She winces, “Ooh. Was it bad?”

“Hmm. Nah, not really. Just got caught up with some stuff.” Like sleeping through a midterm.

“Well… I’m sure you’re going to do fine this time around. As long as you remember to bring a pen and paper next class.” She winks.

That almost catches him off guard, almost, but Chrom doesn’t miss a beat. He feigns being insulted—hand to his chest for good measure. “Hey, I’ll have you know, I _did_ bring some. I just left them in my car... I wasn’t going to walk back. So uh, thanks again.”

She laughs outright at this, the sound fluttering from her lips like butterflies, and to Chrom it sounds like the loveliest thing in the world.

The rest of the class goes by smoothly, and Raus calls on a few pairs to share what they discussed. When she reached Chrom and Robin, Chrom opted to do most of the talking; not so much just out of general kindness (though that did play a part—Robin looked like a frightened deer when they were called on) but also for the simple fact that Robin had claimed she knew very little of the class’s actual subject. He figured he could cover for them both, and neither of them would have to leave class looking like the token first-day idiots.

By the time class was over, Chrom had folded up the few pages of his purple ink-notes he had, and placed them into his back pocket. (It would have to do until he reached his bag.) Robin quickly collected her things, lugged that huge black bag over shoulder (seriously how could she carry that?) headed towards the door along with the stampede of other students bustling to get out--then stopped. She glances down at her boots. After a brief moment, she spins on her heel, walking back to their desks and up to Chrom, craning her neck upward to meet his eyes. It was easier to maintain eye contact from their desks, now that they were standing, Chrom had to swivel his head downward to look her in the face.

"Um, can I ask you for a favor?”

“...Sure?” he replies slowly, not having the slightest clue on what she could want. He liked her, but they did _just_ meet, so he was a little on edge at needing to do a favor so soon. Despite that, he felt an overwhelming sense to just go along with whatever she was about to ask.

She flicks her head, flipping a lock of hair out of her face, “I know this is the first week and all, but...I actually won’t be able to make it to next week’s class. I was hoping I could get the notes from you, if that’s okay?” She looks up at him, sheepish.

“That’s fine.” Chrom answers, a little relieved she wasn’t trying to wrap him into a Ponzi scheme, “Did you want me to give them to you the next time I see you, or…?” He trails off, hoping he didn’t sound too forward.

“No...that’ll be too far from now. You could…” She stammers, fumbling with the strap of her bag, “You could just text me a picture of your notes…?” Chrom can’t quite read the expression on her face. 

Wait.

Text.

Text?

_Text?!!!_

_She was asking for his number! Not exactly of course, she needed a way to receive her notes— but she WAS asking for his number! This was a huge step to becoming friends, and it was happening already! And she was the one asking!_

Chrom’s inner puppy-dog tail wags, excitement blooming all throughout him.

“I mean, you don’t have to! We could find a different way!” She blurts, that frightened deer look returning, “I just thought that would be easiest...”

Chrom didn’t even realize he had zoned out. That made the second time, and now here she was stumbling over herself like she said something wrong.

Chrom’s inner puppy-dog tail stops wagging. _We don’t have to find a different way! Texting is fine!_

“No no! That’s not a problem! Here,” he quickly pulls out his phone, “what’s the number?”

She gives him her number, and asks him to text her so she’s certain he's got it correct. She gets his message and thanks him, throwing her phone into her bag.

“So, see you in two weeks?” He smiles.

She turns back towards the door, swiveling her head to look at him. “Yeah, see you...And thank you again, Chrom.”

“No prob--” he stops, it dawning on him that he still has her pen. He digs into his pocket and extends the pen in front of her, “Before I almost forget—here.” It was such a nice pen, Chrom could count on his fingers how many times he’s seen a pen with purple ink—not like he ever really paid attention—but surely she’d want it back.

But she shakes her head, “No, that’s okay. You can keep it. think of it as a gift for doing me a solid next week!” She smiles, and like that she’s out the door.

Now alone, Chrom sits there, between the two desks they were just sitting at-- with her purple pen in his hand and her number in his phone, smiling like an idiot.

He decides this purple pen is his new favorite.

It’s the first day of class, and he might be just a _little_ sprung.

* * *

* * *

“Yo, you not answering your phone or something?!” Vaike asks Chrom, nearly barreling into him, throwing his arm around Chrom’s neck as he walked into Argent Hall’s community room.

Ylisse University had five main residential halls: Argent Hall, Azure Hall, Gules Plaza, Sable Court, and Vert Village. There were a few off-campus dormitories, but they were mostly reserved for graduate students, so Chrom had little knowledge of them. During his first year, Chom stayed in a doubles dorm in Argent Hall, his roommate being Vaike. Initially, Chrom had found him to be irritating; from the first moment they had met Vaike was incessant with making everything a competition between the two. (The day they moved in, Vaike challenged Chrom on who could unpack faster.) From sports, to girls, grades (though that was short-lived) to cooking even, Vaike made everything a challenge.

He eventually confessed to Chrom that his desire to challenge him on everything was because Chrom--and his family--had a reputation among the city of Ylisstol, and a legacy at Ylisse University, with Chrom’s father, grandfather and older sister all being alumni. Vaike grew up in a poor neighborhood in Ylisstol, and received a sports scholarship to YU, making it possible for him to even attend. He was the first in his family to go to college, and so, feeling patronized by so many of YU’s student body who hadn’t had to live in squalor and work tirelessly to get where they are, Vaike felt the need to prove himself. Chrom, however, never viewed Vaike as being below him like he suspected, and being naturally competitive himself, the two instead became fast friends. Though Chrom no longer lived on campus, he was still frequently seen throughout Argent Hall, and was known by almost everyone who lived in the building.

Chrom pushes Vaike off of him with a laugh, unbothered, “What do you mean?”

Vaike gives him an incredulous look, “Whaddaya mean, ‘ _What do I mean?_ ’ I musta sent you like a hundred texts in the group chat earlier! Me and Sully was tryin’ to reach you--one of us coulda been dying on the side of the road yknow? You’re definitely not the one to call in emergencies!”

_Ah. The 36 messages. So that’s what that was._

Chrom lets out a laugh as he crosses the lounge to open the community fridge, there’s not much in it: old take-out containers, microwave dinners, beer in unmarked bottles (alcohol was prohibited in the dorms) and cherry soda. He eyes the beer for a moment, but it still being early in the day, opts for the soda.

He closes the fridge door, rising back up. Bringing the can to his lips, he sneers playfully, “Oh, shut up--you’re breathing, aren’t you?” Vaike was so melodramatic. Chrom was definitely the one to call in emergencies; _he was very reliable, thank you very much._

Vaike continued to give him a hard time, “Yeah well, what if I wasn’t? You’d be lookin’ real stupid right now!”

Chrom rolls his eyes and pulls out his phone, deciding to look for the messages. He scrolls through them quickly, most of them consisting of Vaike repeatedly messaging “ _Chrom wya,_ ” to Sully’s annoyance. Her last text threatens to block the chat, and for Chrom to let her know when he was in Argent Hall.

He sends her a text that he was in the community room with Vaike, and continues looking through his messages. He sees a text from his younger sister, Lissa, asking if he could show her around campus. It was her first year, and Chrom had promised her that he would. That text was sent three hours ago. Maybe Chrom wasn’t as reliable as he thought.

Before he can try to attempt to make an excuse to his sister on why he didn’t see her message, Sully strolls straight in.

“Still mooching off the community fridge, Chrom? Go home.” She smirks, placing a hand on her hip, eyeing the soda in his hands.

“That was quick,” Chrom says as he heads over to her, giving her a quick hug. He didn’t expect for Sully to show up so suddenly, though her room was down the hall. She pats his back and grins, plucking the soda out of Chrom’s hand, downing it.

“Hey, Chrom, how goes it?” She crushes the can in her hand and tosses it into the trash.

“It _was_ going fine.” He laments, soda long-gone.

Sully waves her hand, shrugging off the comment, “You weren’t going to finish it, anyways.”

“Yeah but now ya got Chrom-Cooties!” Vaike interjects, wiggling a brow.

“Cooties, Vaike?”

“Yeah, who knows what you’ve done with that mouth!”

“Nothing worse than what you’ve done with yours, I’m certain.”

“Wanna make a bet? Alright! How many times have you—“

“Vaike, shut up!” Sully spins on him, Vaike puts his hands up, mouth closing shut. She stares at him for a moment, and continues when he remains silent. “Anyways, Chrom and I have been sharing food and shit since we were kids. I guarantee his mouth was grosser then.”

That was true. He ate a snail once in grade school. Shell and all.

She turns to face Chrom, “Whatever. Stahl was talking about throwing a homecoming party this friday in his dorm, said his buddies tipped off the Vert Village RA’s so it’s probably not going to get busted. It should be pretty good. He wanted me to tell you about it. You game?”

Chrom loved going to parties, loved meeting new people, loved being in the middle of the action. If there was any major party he was there, and more than likely talking to everyone within radius.

“Sure.” He shrugs.

“Cool,” she replies, right before scrunching her face and stepping away from him. She looks him up and down before sputtering out, “Why the hell do you have glitter on?”

“What?” Chrom says, immediately glancing at his hands. Sure enough, scattered across his palms, laid the tiny, reflective particles.

When was he near any glitter?

* * *

* * *

It’s late when Chrom finally gets home. After meeting up with Sully and Vaike in Argent Hall, Chrom had two more classes for the day. Next, he met up with Stahl who told him more about the upcoming homecoming party. He seemed to be in it for the food more than anything else, but his roommates wanted to do something big. Stahl, being the mellow guy that he was, went along with it, telling Chrom as long as everyone had a good time, it was all good with him. Lastly, he went to the gym, which he did nearly everyday at the end of the day, before heading home.

He steps to the front door, puts his key into the lock, and barely gets two steps into the house before he hears the voice booming down on him at full-force.

“WHAT THE HELL, CHROM?”

He winces, his sister’s voice kicking his eardrums all the way to Valm. She may have been a few years younger, but Chrom learned from an early age not to mess with Lissa’s temper. Once when they were children, he had stepped on her dollhouse (accidentally) breaking it. She stuffed his bed with crickets and it took weeks to completely rid of them; their father had to hire an exterminator to make sure they wouldn’t have any kind of infestation due to the sheer amount of crickets in the house. Chrom still dreams of crickets to this day.

She stomps right over to him in the entryway, points her tiny finger at him, indignant blonde pigtails bobbing, “You promised me you were going to show me around campus for my first day! I didn’t see you at all today, and when I texted you if you wanted to meet up, you didn’t even respond! I was starting to think you got in an accident; like crashing your car, or-or falling down a ravine, or even getting eaten by a bear!” She stomps her foot for emphasis, completely serious about these potential scenarios.

He was pretty bad at the not responding thing today. He puts his hands on Lissa’s shoulders, hoping his _cheer up_ vibes would telepathically communicate with her. “I’m sorry about that. I meant to respond, but I...forgot.” he finishes lamely, Lissa’s dubious face stopping him in his tracks.

She gives him her mightiest glare. When he doesn’t falter, she rolls her eyes. “Whatever, Chrom.” He ruffles her hair playfully, a smile blooming onto his face for being forgiven. She swats his hand away.

Chrom heads towards the kitchen, and places his bag down on the floor. Lissa follows, and leans against the sink countertop.

“Well, since I couldn’t be there to help, how was your first day?”

“It was good. Maribelle ended up showing Ricken and I around. I missed her so much! Her hair’s gotten soooo long.”

Maribelle was Lissa’s best friend. The girls were about two years apart though, so Maribelle had gone on to YU while Lissa was still in high school. It didn’t surprise Chrom at all that the pair would find a way to immediately meet up again after finally being reunited.

“So what did you need me for?” He asks, “Maribelle was the perfect one to give you a tour.”

She bounces on her foot again, “I needed _you_ because _you_ know where all the parties are! You know Maribelle acts like we’re too good for those kind of things, her being a RA and all. She’d never tell me!”

Chrom gives her a look, “I’m not going to tell you about any parties either, Lissa!”

What kind of older brother took his sister to college parties?

She shakes her head, her pigtails brushing against her cheeks, “Look, all I’m saying is that I just want to know which residence hall throws the best parties. Ricken says it’s Argent Hall. Maribelle says someone gets busted in Gules Plaza at least once a week. I’m pretty sure Sable Court gets no action with Maribelle as one of their RA’s.”

That was true. Maribelle had absolutely no tolerance for dorm parties or any behavior prohibited by Ylisse University’s Housing Council. In the two years since she started attending, she was already well-known throughout the all-girls Sable Court, and all five residence halls as well. If there was any Resident Advisor to have, it certainly wasn't Maribelle. 

“I bet you already know about one, huh?” Lissa looks at him, scrutinizing, “A real big party!”

“No.” Chrom says flatly, lying through his teeth.

“Well then, what did YOU do today then? Since you were SO busy.”

“My classes were pretty boring. I saw Sully and Vaike."

"Oh! How were they? Vaike drop any classes, yet?"

"They're fine, and yes, he did."

Lissa lets out a snort, "You owe me twenty bucks,"

"We didn't bet on anything," he deadpans, "and I certainly wouldn't risk betting anything on Vaike finishing his classes." 

"Oh, I know, I know. What else?"

"Hmm. Other than that...” He points his eyes to the ceiling, trying to recall.

What else was there?

There was Robin. And his pen fiasco.

He starts, suddenly getting flustered at the memory though he wasn't sure why, “ Oh, uh, there was also this girl I met in my morning class, she--”

A sly smile pulls at Lissa’s lips as she interrupts, “A girl, huh? Is that why you were _so distracted_ today?”

Before he can protest and make his case, Lissa stretches out her arms, stifling a yawn that seemed mostly for show. “Sure, sure, Chrom. I believe you. But I’m tired, already had homework assigned today. So I’m going to bed. See you in the morning, bro.” she heads towards the staircase leading upstairs.

Chrom gives up on defending himself, waves her goodnight. He lets out a yawn of his own, realizing how tired he was himself.

Chrom didn’t have any intention on telling Lissa about the party in Vert Village; not that he had any issue with her going to parties--he just prided himself on being a good role model to his little sister, and the Chrom that was at parties...definitely wasn’t. Plus she would certainly tell Emmeryn everything she saw him get up to. There’d be plenty of parties going on during Homecoming week, hopefully she would find one not too extreme, and not anywhere he’d be.

Chrom pulls the purple pen out of his pocket.

But there was someone he would like to see there.

With his free hand, he opens his phone, staring at the new name in his contact list.

_Robin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chrom and Robin didn't interact much, but they did just meet, so i promise they will in upcoming chapters!
> 
> i appreciate you all taking your time to read this <3 please let me know what you think!


	2. I'm No Poet, Please Excuse My Gods-Awful Handwriting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrom despairs over the politics of text messaging.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am going to just publish this before i continue to edit it for eternity.

Chrom mashes his finger on the backspace, quickly erasing the message on his phone, and writes it out again. He rereads the new one, turns his phone at an angle to _really get a look at it,_ and deletes it again. He types something else. He deletes that too. He even lets Autofill give it a shot. He erases that as well, but not before screenshotting it (for posterity, of course.) He’s been at this for about ten minutes ever since he got out of his Communications class, sitting in one of the middle rows inside the old amphitheater located right to the west of the Ylissean Language Arts Department. A new amphitheater was built about two years ago, this one was currently only used as a spot for students to sit in between classes; especially when the library happened to be full. Which, this being the second week of classes, was. Chrom had walked his way over to the amphitheater and sat down, thinking sending this message wouldn’t take long, truthfully no longer than a few minutes--there's a guy to the right of him on the next row obnoxiously playing his guitar.

He groans as he erases another potential message. Mission: _Text Robin the Lecture Notes,_ was underway, and Chom was failing spectacularly. 

It’s tricky trying to initiate the first message you ever send someone. Chrom doesn’t know if he should just send the pictures of the notes, or ask her how she was doing _and then_ text her the pictures of the notes, or if he should do something like send a thumbs up emoji and send the pictures of the notes. Maybe the sunglasses emoji would work? What about a gif?

Was she an emoji type? Did she even use abbreviations? What if she texted like a scholar from Themis’s Institute of Science and Technology with a PhD in Linguistics? Chrom didn’t know, and this was a very real issue nowadays.

There was a test of familiarity that came with texting. The texts between Chrom and Lissa probably weren't even legible to the average person--the two of them pretty much had their own texting language. Only Chrom knew what Lissa meant when she sent him an emoji of a saxophone and a wrench. To text someone who you were unfamiliar with--but very much wanted to be familiar with, was rocky waters. He wanted to leave a good impression, but didn't want to seem too _forward._

Finally, after fifteen minutes of going back and forth with himself—he sends the pictures of the notes with a cursory text:

_Here you go :)_

He adds the smiley emoticon in the last minute. The safest, most harmless he could think of.

Now that it was sent, there were a million other things Chrom would rather do than look at his phone, so he shoves it into his pocket and bolts out of the amphitheater.

At first, he meanders just a bit; walking around the North Quad and waving at everyone who waved or said hello to him. He looks at the bulletin boards; someone's supposedly selling their calculus textbook for about twenty-percent off the manufacturer price. Someone else is looking for a roommate who hopefully doesn't smoke, and lastly, the science department is looking for human guinea pigs in their latest sleep experiment. He briefly considers signing up—but thinks better of it when he sees the tiny size font disclaimer wrap around to the other side of the page.

After leaving that, he heads for the fountain pool when a group of girls pass by, all in similar clothing. Mini-dresses or skirts with thigh-high socks and boots with wing-shaped earrings or hair-clips.

One of the girls pops her head out of the gaggle and shouts, “Hey! That’s Chrom!” and they all proceed to turn their heads to him. Some of them wave weakly at him, The others glower at him as if he personally kicked their dog. Then they all turn back and continue walking in step in perfect sync.

That was weird.

Chrom recognized the girls as being part of The Pegasus Sister’s Association, a YU Sorority he knew next to nothing about, sans the few friends he had that were members.

Even though he found the glaring thing unnerving--he tries to remember pissing anyone off recently--bumping into those girls gave him an idea on where else he could go.

He enters the North Food Court, and keeps walking, walking, walking until he stops at the little shop all the way in the corner, by the small rose gardens. Little pastries and sandwiches are all laid neatly in display, sitting atop small lace paper wrappings. There's a sale going on; If you buy three pastries, you get another one free.

 _That's too much sugar_ , he thinks idly, right before stepping in front of the sign that reads _Shepherd's Bakery,_ peering over the display glass in search of a particular someone.

He leans over just a bit--to get a better view of the kitchen behind the front counter. In the corner of the tiny kitchen he sees a little round bottom jutting out of a large metal floor cabinet. Pink sneakers kicking up and down slightly.

“Oh no, oh no… where did it go?” a voice muffles from out the cabinet, and Chrom calls out, certain he’s found who he’s looking for.

“Uh...Sumia?” 

At his voice, the disembodied butt stops wiggling. A few seconds go by, and two hands come from out of the cabinet, pushing the rest of the body as it pops outward, a whirlwind of rosy brown curls fluffing loose. She turns to face the direction of the voice, chocolate eyes lighting up when she spots the source.

“Oh! Chrom! Hi, Chrom!” she bounces up at break-neck speed, rushing to the counter.

The speed on this girl was incredible--really--Chrom only saw a brown-ish pink flash, “S-Sumia, wait!” he stammers, half-terrified by her sheer acceleration, the other because at the rate she was going, she could-

A yelp breaks out of the pastel-y blur, and suddenly she is falling fast; having tripped over a dough roller on the floor. Chrom can only stick his hand out in uselessness from over the other side of the display glass.

She breaks her fall by slamming ahold of the countertop, hands grasping on the edge to keep herself upright. The utensils fly and scatter in all directions, clanging sounds ringing vividly as they hit the floor.

A second passes. Mixture from a knocked over bowl pours out onto the tile on the floor. The fat curls of her hair spill over the edge the countertop, powder-pink manicured nails gripping onto the surface.

“Ohhhh why. Why, why, why…” She whines. The brown-floof that Chrom can make out for her head shakes side to side.

“...Sumia?” he says again, hoping she didn’t hurt herself too seriously. She tripped all the damn time--and she got up unscathed and picture perfect almost nine times out of ten. But a fall was a fall, and the least he could do was check.

“Are you...alright?”

She rises up, and inhales deeply. She dusts her apron with her hands; flour, sprinkles and other particles bouncing off. She puffs her cheeks, and finally lets out the breath she was holding. Her wing-earrings dangle with renewed vigor at the motion.

“No.” she pouts, and Chrom notices the flour coating the tip of her nose, “I really need to work on my feet or something. I keep falling everywhere, even with these slip resistance shoes--and messing everything up. My boss left me with the ingredients list we need to order for tomorrow, and I stinkin’ lost it.” She closes her eyes and sighs, Chrom can feel the disappointment radiating off of her.

"I told myself I was just gonna put it down for a second while I stirred the mix for the cheesecake crust, and now it's gone...She’s going to be so mad when she gets back! I can see it now! ...Oh, Sumia, you dolt! I wonder if this is what’s going to be the last straw in me getting canned. I need this job, my books are so expensive this term! Oh, what do I do? What do I do?”

Chrom taps the top of the display glass, stopping her from berating herself further. “Sumia,” he says, and she looks up at him, “No offense, but the rest of the staff here don’t even hold a candle to the stuff that you bake.”

He was deathly serious. He never stopped by this place when Sumia wasn’t working. He’d wrestle a kangaroo over her rhubarb pie. “If they fired you they’d be getting rid of the best they have." He makes a face, "Then they'd probably go out of business, so...I doubt they're going to do that.”

“Oh, stop.” She says as a smile threatens to poke through, her face visibly perking back up. Chrom was glad he could get her to cheer up. A sad Sumia was a modern tragedy.

“So, what are you going to get today? The usual?” she asks, back in her usual chipper demeanor, leaning over the display glass, body hovering over the counter. Her boss would certainly yell at her for this, on top of not cleaning up any of that mess she just made, but who cares about that? He follows her lead and also leans on the glass.

“Nah, nothing for today. I’m here just to check up on you. Have you heard about Stahl’s homecoming thing?”

Her eyes light up, “Yes! I have.”

“Are you going?”

She taps her fingers against the glass, drumming each finger subsequently, “I don’t know. I don’t want to third-wheel with Stahl and Cordelia. Of course, Cordy would be mad if she heard me say that. But still, sometimes I feel like I intrude, always being with her and all.”

“Well, she’s your best friend, she wouldn't mind, I'm sure. And I’ll be there too. You shouldn't worry too much about it.” She was always too hard on herself.

She smiles again. “You’re right. Thanks, Chrom.”

“Don’t mention it. But since we’re on the topic of Cordelia, would you have any idea on why your pony-sisters would give me the stink eye earlier on my way here?”

She bounces off the glass, putting her hands back onto the counter. She stares at him for a moment, then her smile turns mischievous, “Nope! Not like I could tell you anyways!” She adds more seriously, "And for the last time, we're not ponies!"

“Why can't you tell me?”

She giggles, “C’mon Chrom, you know Girl Code!"

He most certainly did not.

He lets the disappointment really drag on his face; Sumia was easy to crack when you wore her down enough.

She pays no mind, “Anyways, since you’re not going to order anything, when are you going to join the Literary Club? I've been telling you about it for ages, y'know!” She gives him an oblivious look, cocking her head to the side innocently.

Never.

Way to deflect the question. If he wasn’t at the other end of this, he’d be impressed. He decides to drop the pony-thing for now.

He shakes his head, "I don’t do book clubs, Sumia.” His classes were torture enough. The last thing he wanted to do was sit down and discuss MORE books. On his free time, no less!

“That’s too bad, don’t you think?” She teases, not entirely about the literary club.

“Yeah, it is.” He laughs, pushing himself off the glass.

“Well, looks like I gotta go. Be careful, Sumia.” He salutes two fingers her way.

She mirrors him, trying to be serious but falling into a goofy laugh, her voice fading as he turns away, “Oh, I’ll try. See you later, Chrom!”

He makes it halfway out of the food court when he hears a buzz from his phone.

He stops right in the middle of the tables, frozen in place; ignoring the smorgasbord of fast food smells and students telling him to get the fuck out of the way. _Language!_

He reaches for his phone, takes a minute to collect himself before checking it.

_From Robin, Sent 1 min ago._

This was it.

He opens it, and reads:

_Hey thanks_

And that's all it says. Chrom can’t help but feel a little disappointed. But what kind of reaction was he even expecting? Why is this disappointing? 

He begins responding when he sees the loading bubble pop up. She’s still typing. He immediately freezes, then erases what he was going to write, hoping she'll continue.

_But I can’t_

Says the next one.

 _Can’t what?_ Chrom feels a bit nervous now. Is she mistakenly texting him?

The loading bubble returns, and Chrom watches it intensively. The screen is nearly to his nose. 

_Read this._

_But I can’t read this._

* * *

* * *

She couldn't read it? How could she not read it?

He pulls the pictures up with a quickness; examining them like it was a murder scene. Today he was Chrom the Crime Scene Investigator. He zooms in on one picture, and he...he...

He.

Can’t.

Read.

It.

He can’t fucking read it.

The picture isn’t blurry, it’s not too dark, it’s not too grainy--no the picture quality is just _FINE_ but his handwriting is every way illegible. It was damn near hieroglyphic.

 _Did he always write like this?_ He thinks of all the birthday cards to Lissa that Emmeryn never let him sign.

 _S_ _orry :(_ she texts again.

Now he knew that she used emoticons at least. Or maybe she was just following his pattern.

Chrom felt like an ass. She was relying on him for these notes and here he was with this _chicken scratch_ that he could hardly read himself. He doubted she had a back-up classmate for these notes in case he fell through; and he knew Professor Raus was definitely not the type to go over material with students who missed the lecture. _Why was she sorry? He should be the one sorry! Gods, what an idiot!_

Still rooted to the same spot, he makes a disgruntled sound at his phone, lightly shaking it. Some students look at him weirdly as they pass by with their food.

He had to fix this, because he _was reliable (he was!)_ And even if he was starting to lose his legitimacy to claim that in this past week, he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

Before he can stop to think on what he was about to do, he presses the button to dial her number from the message menu.

He presses the phone to his ear, adrenaline running through him. _He was going to fix this!_

A moment passes, Chrom hears the line click through the other end-- and that bravado--that poor, pitiful bravado, flies out the window.

“Hello?” Her voice waves into his head.

Shit.

“Chrom?”

“Uhm, Hello.” he sputters. He didn’t think about what he was going to say exactly. Something about his god-forsaken notes, but he hadn’t mapped out the specifics. This half-baked idea sounded so much better in his head ten seconds ago. He holds the phone to his head, kicking the little rocks around the tables mindlessly.

“Hello.” She says again. “How are you?”

Chrom is currently rehashing every experience he has ever had talking with another human being in the twenty-two years he has been alive, in hopes it will help give him some guidance on what to say--when he hears this question.

“Uhh, I’m fine. Keep the change.”

“What?”

He panics, hand shooting straight to the top of his head, “I-I mean, I’m fine! Thanks for asking!”

_Dear Naga!_

She laughs on the other end, and Chrom’s heart pounds as if he spent the last hour swatting at hornet’s nests.

“You’re funny,” she says afterwards. Completely oblivious to his near melt-down.

_Yeah he was funny alright. Real funny._

“I’m sorry about not being able to read the notes.” She suddenly says, a bit quietly, “I know it’s a hassle.”

A record scratches in Chrom’s head. His brow furrows.

“You don’t have to apologize! It was my mistake...Should’ve accounted for my messy handwriting, huh?”

“...In my defense, I couldn’t see what your handwriting looked like from my desk. I’ll make sure to always consider handwriting legibility whenever I need someone else’s notes from now on, though.”

“Sounds like a good idea.” He says in an almost-laugh, looking at his fingers.

There’s a silence. Chrom swallows before continuing.

“Seriously though, I feel really bad about this.” He sighs, “I could try to re-write them over for you? Or...If you have the time, I could try to...like, decipher it out.” He winces a bit. Here he was talking about his own writing like it was a codex from the era of Altea.

She laughs again, “If you could explain it to me, that would be great. You don’t sound all that confident about it though.”

“I would manage.” Hell, it was his writing.

“Then... I guess it’s a deal. Are you still on campus?”

“Yeah.” He answers, a little too quickly, a little too rough.

“How long will you be there? I’ll meet you.”

* * *

* * *

Chrom meets up with Robin after he gets out of his last class for the day. He was worried that she would have to wait for him, since his last class didn’t end until well into the evening, but she assures him it’s no problem for her since she lives on campus, in Sable Court. Incidentally, they end up meeting at the old amphitheater, as it was close to her dorms. They sit side by the side, in the same spot Chrom had sat at earlier.

Trying to explain his notes to Robin was much easier said than done. Tragically, he didn’t realize that he was not only going to have to tell her what the hell he wrote-- _that says iconoclastic? I thought it said idiosyncratic!--_ but her own words coming back to haunt him, she didn’t know a damn thing about Naga.

It took every ounce of control he could muster to not smack his hand against his head every ten minutes. Every line they went over she was squinting her eyes at the page, asking him to clarify or repeat himself, looking at him as if he spoke Valmese. He had to squint to read it himself. To onlookers, they must've looked absolutely crazy--him holding the notes, reading them aloud, her trying to write some of her own; both with utterly baffled expressions. Her cluelessness was kind of cute though, and her handwriting was _much_ nicer than his--so he had to at least give her credit there.

Chrom is nothing if not stubborn--and apparently so is she, because the two of them end up sitting in the amphitheater for a total of three hours over two pages of notes. The sun had long set, leaving the two of them pretty much the only students there with the exception of a few stragglers.

“I think you’re finally getting it.” He says, as he sips out of his _Shepherds Cafe_ cup, “You’re quite a fast learner.”

She gives him a wary look as if he was mocking her. He leans back over the bench seat, putting his cup on the surface of the seat behind them. They had picked up something to eat a little while earlier, “I’m serious. For someone who legitimately knows near nothing about this.”

“I...well...thanks, I guess.” Is all she manages to say. She pokes at the bean-filled pita on her lap, and stills.

In the silence, he takes another sip out of his cup, the sound of him drinking through his straw reverberating. She doesn’t say anything--and Chrom, more or less, is a bit tired of talking after having to play history teacher.

She tugs on the sleeve of her cream-colored knit sweater, and then pokes the pita again. He rattles the ice around in his now soda-less cup.

“It’s interesting.” She begins, breaking the silence, not looking up from her sleeve, “To revere a god that is seen as willing to serve humanity, willing to self-sacrifice... it almost sounds...naively optimistic.” She stops pulling at her sweater when a thread comes loose. “Fascinating.”

Chrom stops rattling the cup, discerning her words carefully before speaking, “It’s not as though she is a god. More like... an ally.There's a strong notion among the general population that she is a god, but in her words--as they say--she is not. There's tons of books out there that discuss this in length.” He waves his hand dismissively, like he didn’t just dredge up centuries of Ylissean philosophy. "I expect it to be a central topic in our class, actually."

She watches him carefully, almost scrutinizing. He wishes he could go back to drinking his soda. It’s gone now, so he pops the lid and chugs a block of ice.

The ice crunches between his teeth, “I phorgot to aschkyew beforh,” he says to her, then swallows, “but where are you from?”

She breaks eye contact right before looking down and tearing a piece off of her pita with her fingers, “I’m from Plegia.” She mutters, then takes what Chrom thinks is the smallest damn bite off of that piece.

An odd feeling passes through Chrom; there weren’t many Plegians he could confidently say that he knew personally--and he finds himself recalling the times his father rambled at the nightly television news drunk about how Plegians were the cause of...whatever ailment he thought appropriate to blame them for at the time. He thinks of everything his father ever told him about Plegians, nothing in good faith.

He grimaces at the recollections, and she frowns as he does.

He’s talking again before he even realizes, “I thought that Plegia had a considerable population of those who followed Naga? And yet you’ve never known anything about it?” He doesn’t mean to pester her, but he is genuinely curious.

Her expression turns cagey, she grips the container the pita laid in tightly and says almost hurriedly, “My father...did not permit any teachings of Naga growing up. He absolutely forbade it, to the point where when I was finally on my own, I didn't know anything about her.” She laughs a little now, "It's almost embarrassing, really."

Oh.

He looks at the remaining ice in the cup, debating if he should eat another one; he does, but it's partially melted so it breaks immediately when he bites down on it. "You shouldn't feel bad about that. My dad was almost the same way. He had something negative to say about everything he didn't personally believe in himself."

"Did he?"

"Yeah. He was an asshole." He admits simply, like it was indisputable fact.

They sit in silence, the air having become a bit charged with all this talk of religion and nationality. A student who had been asleep the last couple of hours a few rows above where they sat comes walking down in between them, apologizing as he went. Chrom leans over so the guy can lift his backpack over them.

Even though he told her that she shouldn't, Chrom can tell that Robin felt some kind of way about her lack of knowledge surrounding Naga. Granted, he didn't know her all that well at this point--but he could see how much the topic made her hesitate, how much more she was resigned to herself about it. Honestly, Chrom found her a bit intimidating; from what he had seen from her she had a wit to her that he felt could cut through steel. But there was also something elusive about her, she wasn't easy to read. In any case, he didn't want the time he was spending with her to be a dour one.

After staring at it for a while, Chrom takes his now-melting-ice cup and places the lid back on it. He then winds his arm nearly as far back as it could, and tosses the cup straight into the air. It soars in a convex upward line, way past the row in which they were sitting. The cup flies--water and ice flinging out--until it heads down, down, downwards-and lands square in the trash bin at the ground level of the amphitheater, an abrupt thud confirming the shot.

Robin leans over in her seat, eyes directly following the cup's trajectory, and turns back to face him when it slams into the bin.

“Wow,” she says, the tiniest of smirks tugging at her lips, “you made that all the way from up here.”

Her smile inches just a bit bigger when they lock eyes. “Pretty nice.”

“Thanks,” he says, grinning from ear to ear, willing the adrenaline he felt from the throw to shut his brain out before he could do anymore thinking, “Hey, I know about a party this Friday, wanna go?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first-time texting is stressful. seriously.
> 
>   
> also everyone: apparently chrom says "Sorry!" when he gets knocked off the stage in Smash Ultimate and i'll have you know i only cried over that for 6 hours. 
> 
> thanks for reading! let me know what you think <3


	3. Take It to the Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day of the homecoming party has finally arrived, and Chrom is about to flip out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to everyone who has commented or reviewed so far. it means so much to me! i'm going to try and do better at making sure i respond to all of you guys from here on out as well!
> 
> If you get the fashionnebula joke know that I laughed over it for like 3 days.

It’s Friday morning when Chrom meets up with his counselor to go over his plans for his senior year. She emailed him earlier within the week to remind him that he was due for an appointment, and so here he was, despite his reluctance, sitting across from her at her small mahogany desk. Chrom hated the counseling center, every time he went in to check with any counselor he swore he could feel the judgmental vibes nearly bouncing off of them, or maybe he was just being paranoid.

Regardless, his assigned one was no different.

To make matters worse, he was having a bit of a hard time paying attention, his mind wandering back to the fact that Robin had actually agreed to come to Stahl’s party tonight. He didn’t know what he was thinking, asking her so abruptly like that (it flustered him just thinking about it) but what was even more outrageous, she had said yes?! 

He didn't know what he was expecting her to say, but she just shrugged her shoulders and said, "Sure."

And for the rest of the week, Chrom's mind had been running wild. It wasn't a date, right? Right?! No, he just asked her if she wanted to come along! 

He could hardly concentrate long enough to give his counselor all the information she needed to pull up his files, and it was clear that his absent-mindedness was beginning to wear on the overworked woman’s nerves.

But he's too far gone, over-analyzing the position he's put himself in.

He would have to introduce her to all of his friends. If he didn’t, they would begin to question this new girl he was suddenly talking to and why. But it wasn’t like _that_ , so he would have to make sure they knew exactly what it _was_ like. It pained him to admit, but Chrom didn’t make female friends easily. He knew Sully since they were kids, and she was the greatest tomboy back then--still was. Maribelle was a friend of Lissa’s. Sumia he knew from an entire two years of sharing classes with her. Cordelia by proxy of being Sumia’s friend. Those were the only girls he could think off the top of his head.

If he brought Robin around suddenly, they’d definitely think something was up. But nothing was!

Nothing at all. It wasn’t like he met her on Tinder or anything, she was from his class!

He wasn’t worried about her meeting his friends, most of them were reasonable people and reflected well on him, but...he could count on quite a few of them to get wasted tonight, and that was a bit worrying. Vaike, in particular. He could be...lecherous with women when inebriated. He didn’t want Robin to become one of Vaike’s unsuspecting victims, so he would probably have to keep the two separate for the time being. But other than that, everything else should be fine. Though she was a bit quiet, she seemed like fun, and he could envision her getting along rather well with everyone.

“So, Chrom,” she begins, tearing her eyes from his files on her computer and looking him on directly, “have your started working on your thesis?”

Chrom snaps back to attention, giving her a startled look. He immediately scratches the back of his neck. He looks out the small window behind her desk that shows the main hall of the office. His thoughts are in disarray; it takes him a minute to sort what she just said.

“Um.”

The counselor raises her brow, waiting on his response.

Truthfully, he hadn’t started at all. Hadn’t even thought about it. He had promised himself towards the end of winter break that he would be on top of this too, before his spring classes started. Guess that was out.

She taps on the computer mouse lightly, a knowing look all over her features. Chrom wasn’t the only senior with poor time management skills to come traipsing into her office. He certainly wouldn’t be the last.

“I, uh, scrapped the initial idea.” He lies to save face, suddenly embarrassed for his forgetfulness, “So, I haven’t settled on anything yet.”

“Really?” She says, brow still raised in place.

“Yep.”

“Well, then,” She leans into her chair, “I would suggest you settle on something soon. You shouldn’t procrastinate on this. Don’t forget that you need to have your internship hours fulfilled by the end of this semester, and that you need to begin applying for graduation too.”

“Right,” he sighs, a wave of stress instantly crashing down on him, “Of course.”

She leans back into the computer, immediately typing something in.

“For now, I can at least give you a listing of companies that are currently offering internships in your field, if that’s something you’d find useful?” Her tone almost imploring.

“Yeah. Yeah, that would be great. Thanks.”

She’s already printing it out by the time he answers, “Here you go. Please look it over.”

He takes the sheet from her hand, and she adds with a hint of vexation, “And also, do try to make it to your next follow-up with me, alright?”

Chrom leaves her office with the company listings tightly in his hand. As he walks down the corridor, he looks over the page, taking note of every company listed. He’d have to look them all up later, see what the job forums online had to say about them. Chrom had always envisioned interning for his sister’s office when the time came, where she worked as a member of Ylisstol’s City Council. This year, she would be preparing to run for mayor, so she would definitely need all the help she could get, it would be the perfect time to start.

But these weren’t bad alternatives either; and it would probably be in his best interest to stay on top of them, if for any outlandish reason, his plans with working for Emmeryn didn’t work out.

Chrom didn’t have any classes on Fridays, he had came to campus solely for his meeting with his counselor. It was still the morning-- the homecoming game didn’t start until six, and the party was at least two hours after that. He had some free time, so he figured he should take this chance to go over the whole interning thing with Emmeryn now.

He exits the building, opening his phone and debating if he should just call or text her. Emmeryn was horrible at texting, and she probably wouldn’t answer the call if she was working. At the very least, he knew for certain that she’d be at her office at this time, so he just decides he should make it a surprise and show up unannounced, because that was what little brothers were for. Besides, it had been a while since he’d seen her, she’d been so busy lately.

He also went to Emmeryn whenever he was feeling anxious about something, and though he wanted to ignore it, the idea of Robin coming to the party had him panicking just a _tiny_ bit.

The office was on the other side of town. If he left now, he glances at his phone, checking the time, he could beat the traffic heading out that way.

He makes his way to the parking garage (Garage A, much better than B) and approaches his car. Before he gets in, he gives it a one-over--as he always did--to check for any scratches or dents. Chrom was very serious about his car. The first time someone bumped into his car while it was parked, it devastated him, he nearly cried. Asshole almost took the whole bumper off. He shuddered at the memory. If he could, he would park his car as far away from others as he could manage. That wasn’t really possible at any of the campus parking lots, unfortunately.

He finishes checking over the rear taillight when he sees a small flyer jutting off his car’s windshield.

“What the-” he mutters, walking over and snatching the offensive paper off of the vehicle.

> _Hello._
> 
> _I am a Fashion Major conducting an Independent Study for my Senior Thesis on the marketing practices of online fashion brands such as FashionNebula and the societal impacts regarding self-esteem it has on women ages 18-24 and other similar demographics. It would be much appreciated and very helpful if you could participate in my survey. It will only take about five minutes. The link is listed below. Follow me on Twitter or Instagram for updates or any questions. If you have any questions on the methodology of this survey, please contact the Fashion Department._
> 
> _@beautycherries13_

Chrom has to resist the urge to roll his eyes. Putting this crap on his car was certainly an annoying thing to do, and though he usually threw away any junk flyers he found on his windshield, he supposes it won’t be long before he himself is in this person’s shoes with his own senior thesis. He puts the flyer in his back pocket before he gets into the car.

Hopefully he won’t have to resort to sticking survey flyers on strangers’ cars when the time comes, though.

* * *

* * *

The biggest smile stretches on Chrom’s face when he sees his sister. He creaks open the front door to her office slightly, trying his best to enter as quietly as possible. She’s sitting at her desk, on the phone, looking out of the large window behind her desk that showed off the city’s skyline. The city council building was located right in the heart of Ylisstol, giving those who worked there incredible views of the city and it's landscape. The sunlight poured into the room gratuitously, giving everything almost an ethereal glow, he could feel his mood already picking up just by stepping inside. 

He quietly closes the door behind him, and waits in front of it. Emmeryn is still facing her window, talking softly.

“Thank you, Phila. I’ll be sure to look into it the moment I am able. I appreciate it….” She gives a laugh, “No, you! ...Alright then, goodbye.”

She swivels in her chair to place the phone back onto the receiver, and finally notices Chrom standing sheepishly at her front door. She jumps just a bit, then sets the phone down as she recognizes her brother, a smile warmly creeping onto her face. She stands up, and Chrom immediately crosses the room to her. 

She sticks her arms out to him, waiting for her brother’s hug. When they pull apart, she says, “So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your unexpected visit, Chrom?”

“Can I not check on my sister whenever the need arises?”

“Not usually in the middle of my work, no.” She says with a smile. “You normally check to see if I’m busy first.”

“But you always are.”

She laughs as she heads back to her desk. Chrom notes that instead of going back to sitting where she was--in the middle of her paperwork--she opts to lean on the front edge of her desk.

“What do you need, Chrom?” She asks, her mint-colored eyes landing squarely on him.

“Ah. I um,” he stammers, a little surprised by her suddenness. He did show up unannounced though, and was probably already running on her thin time. Emmeryn would never tell him this, however. Would never shoo him away no matter what was on her plate.

“Remember how we talked about me helping you out around here? Well, I was wondering, I guess, when we should get started on that, exactly.”

She watches him for a minute, “The internship, right?”

Chrom nods his head. Her eyes crinkle as she smiles.

“We can begin whenever you’re ready, Chrom.”

“Well, the sooner the better, I suppose. I would like to have all my senior requirements done before at least May.” Gods help him if he was still dealing with this mess by the time his birthday rolled around.

She frowns at this, and immediately turns behind her to grab a tissue from her desk. She coughs harshly into it, then crumples it into her hand, “This is for your graduating requirements, yes?” She says as she clears her throat, pulling out some hand sanitizer and dabbing it onto her hands.

Chrom nods his head again, and Emmeryn suddenly pushes herself off of her desk.

She reaches out to him, grabs both of his hands within hers. She holds them firmly, and Chrom levels a confused gaze on her.

“What is it that you want to do, Chrom?”

He doesn’t understand what she’s asking.

“I want to help you, of course.”

“No, no.” She shakes her head, the sunlight behind her slipping through her golden curls as they sway with the motions. “What do you _truly_ want to do? What can you see yourself doing, in the future-- the bigger picture, beyond helping me or Lissa. What does Chrom want?”

He furrows his brow. He just told her that he wanted to help her. Why was that hard for her to understand?

“Why are you asking me this, Emm?”

Her gaze softens, but she squeezes his hands harder, “Because...I feel as though you’re heart’s not really into what it is that you’re studying. It might be hard for you to realize, but I don’t want you to go through school pursuing something that doesn’t speak to you. Especially if you only do it thinking that it will help me. What _will_ help me, is knowing that you’re happy.”

“...But I am happy...?” He answers, still a little lost. He was always happy to help Emmeryn, always willing to be of use to her.

Emmeryn just gives him a knowing smile, “Alright, Chrom. I’ll trust you.” He has a feeling she doesn’t really mean that, but he doesn’t want to press this any further.

She releases his hands, and begins fixing the collar of his shirt back into place. He has half a mind to stop her--he’s not a child--but doesn’t because this is just what Emmeryn does. She was the closest thing he had to a mother anyways. “What else is going on with you, Chrom?”

Should he bring up inviting Robin? Out of context, it seemed like a bit of a silly worry. An even sillier thing to blabber to Emmeryn about.

But before he can debate with himself on it, she says, almost on cue, “You know, Lissa is always telling me about the things she gets up to, kind of like how you used to. She even told me she was going to a homecoming party tonight.” Emmeryn smiles proudly, “Her first one, I can’t believe it.”

What?!

“She’s doing _what?!”_ Chrom all but yells.

Lissa? Going to a party? Tonight?

Fuck!

“Yes, she’s going to a party. That’s what she told me. Oh, Chrom, don’t have that face--no one stopped you when you started going.”

Chrom groans, Emmeryn gives him a quizzical look.

He puts his hand to his head, “I don’t care about her partying, Emm. I just have every feeling she’s going to be at the same place I’ll be at tonight.”

He didn’t want to have to deal with babysitting Lissa. He imagines some dude offering her some drink out of a plastic cup. He also imagines knocking that same dude out cold on the spot. Lissa was eighteen now, and while he respected that, he was still her older brother, and he still had the desire to beat any guy who talked to her senseless. He knew guys talked to Lissa, he had seen her Instagram---right before she blocked him--and she was quite popular. Chrom didn’t care. She could do all that living-her-life thing somewhere where he wouldn’t see. Out of sight, and out of mind.

Emmeryn’s smile grows wider. “Well, it certainly will make for an interesting night. Maybe you two can keep an eye out for each other.” Chrom doesn’t miss the mischievous glint in her eye.

Perhaps she thought this whole thing was funny. Maybe some kind of justice for being the oldest and never having the chance to goof around like her younger siblings.

A beeping noise suddenly rings out, and Emmeryn looks down to check the smartwatch on her wrist, a small gasp pulling from her lips as she reads the alert.

She looks back up to Chrom, trying to conceal a smile that was spreading on her face like a wildfire, “I really hate to cut this short, Chrom, but I’m afraid I have to get back to my work. Phila has just told me that the Ylisstol School district will be backing my campaign this upcoming race, and I have a conference call with the Superintendent in about twenty minutes!”

* * *

* * *

The afternoon goes by rather uneventfully. Chrom drops by the grocery store in town later with Sully in tow to pick up some liquor for the party. The two of them argue over what exactly to get; Sully adamant about Vodka and Chrom vouching for rum or tequila. _You’re a fucking alcoholic, Chrom. Who drinks tequila straight?_

Neither of them budge on their stances, so they end up getting all three plus the four cases of beer they promised Stahl that they would pick up. In the check-out line, Chrom asks Sully to check Lissa’s Instagram for any hints that she would be heading to the party. _She blocked me, remember?_

Sully shows him her phone, and the latest post Lissa made was at nine-thirty in the morning with a picture of her and Maribelle in their scrubs with the hashtag, _#NursingSchoolGrind._

Oh gods.

Back in his car, Sully immediately tears through one of the cases, cracks open a beer and begins chugging.

“I thought I was the alcoholic one,” he smirks at her as he turns the ignition.

She pulls her lips from the can and looks at him sidelong, “Yeah, you are. Because you drink like a menace. Drinking tequila straight out? No mixer, no salt, no lime, or anything? You had to have picked that shit up from Vaike.”

He definitely did. He wasn’t going to admit it though. He looks over his shoulder as he pulls out the lot.

“Besides, I’m not the one driving,” she says in a sing-song voice, and continues to chug.

So, Sully was going to be screwed before they even got to the game or the party. That was one person he could count out.

Sully begins mashing her fingers on his dash, flipping on the car’s bluetooth. Chrom looks at her from the corner of his eye, and snatches her phone before she can pair it.

“What the fuck? What are you doing?!”

“Nuh-uh. Nope. My car, my music. You know the rules.” He holds her phone over to his left side, leaning as she tries to snatch it back.

“Stop being a dick, Chrom!” She laughs, right before getting serious, trying to snatch it back. Sully is quick, so Chrom has to really dodge out of the way to keep her from getting her phone back.

He nearly swerves out of the lane they were in, but neither of them seem to notice.

“You weren’t playing anything anyways, why the hell do you even care?”

“Can’t we just sit in peaceful silence for once?”

“Like a middle-aged couple that secretly wants to divorce? I’ll pass!”

He’s still holding onto her phone, and she notices his own phone jutting out of his pocket. She snatches his, and dangles it in front of him.

“Hey!” Chrom says, trying to keep watch of her and the road.

“Give me back mine, and I’ll give you yours.” She says, plainly.

Chrom doesn’t even answer, he’s not going to fall for that trick. Besides, it wasn’t as if she could unlock his--

He watches her enter _0000_ for the passcode. The phone unlocks.

Damn.

He _really_ needed to change that.

“Okay, okay!” He concedes, throwing her phone back onto her lap.

She grins, triumphant. She tosses his phone back at him. “You’re such a fucking idiot.”

She doesn’t bother trying to the pair the phone again, and they sit in silence for a minute, just like a middle-aged couple that secretly wants a divorce.

Chrom clears his throat, effectively breaking the silence, “I invited someone to the party.”

“Oh?” She replies, quirking a brow.

“Yeah. She’s from my literature class.”

“She?” Sully repeats, giving him an amused look, “Trying to catch something tonight, aren’t you Chrom? No wonder you brought all that tequila.”

“N-no!” He stammers, face instantly coloring. “It’s not like that!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Honestly!”

Gods, why did everyone's mind have to go to the gutter?

“I like her a lot,” He admits, “She seems like a good person, and...I don’t know, I helped her with our classwork on Tuesday, and something about her just seemed...lonely. I’d like to be her friend. I mean--Hell, I don’t know, but I think she needs it.”

He doesn’t mention the fact that he finds her utterly beautiful and the inexplicable gravitational pull he felt towards her. That might be a little weird to bring up. And it certainly wouldn’t help his case.

“Okay,” Sully says nonchalantly before adding, “-you going to introduce me to her or something?”

“Yeah, probably. So try not to be too off your ass tonight, alright? I don’t want her first impression of us to be that we’re all a bunch of boozers.”

“Oh, Chrom,” Sully cackles, giving him a disingenuous pitying look right before downing the rest of the beer, “But that’s exactly what we are!”

* * *

* * *

YU’s football team takes home the win for their homecoming game, a blowout of a match--seventeen to zero. The school pride is quite literally off the charts. Students run through the quads with the school letters on their chests, screaming and throwing whatever the hell they could find. A streamer pops off every other second. Chrom’s twitter feed is filled with students talking shit on the losing team. The hashtag #YUShepherds even gets locally trending, and truthfully that was impressive.

There’s also an email sent school-wide from the Dean to the entire student population to keep the celebrations at a minimum, and that campus police would be on high alert tonight.

_Ylisse University is a paragon in student professionalism and behavior. While we encourage students to take pride in the school and it’s many accomplishments, for security reasons, we ask that students celebrate responsibly in doing so._

No one in Vert Village cared though, because all of their RA’s were in on the party, and so there wouldn’t even be anyone to report anything to the campus police in the first place.

Chrom parks his car a little ways from the dorm parking, (he was absolutely on watch about this tonight) and is about to close the door when a particularly powerful breeze pushes through. He shivers, and heads back into his car to grab the denim jacket he had lying in his backseat. He pulls it out, examining it. He had last worn it on Tuesday, when he met up with Robin at the amphitheater. Would she notice him wearing the same thing twice? It wasn’t like his shirt or jeans were the same from that day, so maybe she could take it as this being a favorite jacket of his? He _was_ rather impartial to it, after all. He puts it on, and notices a few glimmering specks reflecting off the sleeves of the denim.

….

There goes the damn glitter again.

“What the fuck,” he mutters, trying to dust it off. The damn specks are persistent though, and continue to give his jacket a glittery finish.

Irritated, he shrugs the jacket off and throws it back into his car. Guess he’ll just wash it when he has time tomorrow. He had enough clothes to wash for a few loads anyways.

“Chrom, what are you doing?” Sully asks him from the other side of the street, carrying the rum, tequila, and vodka bottles in an unmarked cardboard box.

“Nothing. Just give me a minute.” He heads to the trunk to get the beer.

He stacks two cases on top of each other, and crosses the street to meet up with Sully. He’d have to come back and get the other two. They begin walking up the pathway to Vert Village’s gated entrance, and Sully asks, “It's freezing, why’d you ditch the jacket?”

Chrom rolls his eyes, “It had glitter on it. I have no idea where the hell it even came from.”

Sully snickers, “Yeah, right. This is the second time this has happened. You can be honest, Chrom. We all know you love going to strip clubs.”

* * *

* * *

The exact moment Chrom and Sully step into Vert Village’s main hall, Chrom knows the situation is wild. The music is blaring so loud it rattles the beers through their cases, and the foyer is jam packed with loud and dangerously excitable party-goers.

Not even past the main lobby, there is Vaike, in the center of a large crowd, doing a keg stand, chugging ferociously. There are guys on both sides of him, his football teammates, holding his legs with one hand, and with the other, pouring all kinds of alcohol into the keg as he goes.

Yikes.

Sully lets out a roaring laugh, and immediately places the box of drinks on the floor and beelines it to Vaike and his drinking committee. She whips out her phone, and starts filming, almost screeching gleefully, “Oh man! He’s _so_ going to fucking die!”

“Vaike! Vaike! Vaike!” The crowd cheers, and Chrom can begin to hear the straw sucking air as Vaike reaches the bottom of the barrel. The madman actually did it. He took out a whole keg.

They let Vaike down, and he bounces right back up, completely red in the face. His eyes appearing a bit glossed over. Grinning from ear to ear, he lets out a huge whoop.

“WOOO!” He screams, knocking his fist on his head, and the crowd joins in on the yelling. There’s alcohol flinging out of cups everywhere as they bounce and holler. Sully is still laughing her gut out.

After tonight’s game, Vaike was without a doubt the MVP of the party. He made player of the game tonight, scoring the most points of the game. His team is stuck to him like glue, pride all over their faces. Chrom feels a little proud too.

He shakes his head at the scene before him, turning to look for an actual surface to put the beers down on, as opposed to Sully, who dropped her cargo straight in the middle of the floor. He figures the two knuckleheads won’t mind if he walks off just for a minute.

He heads further into the main hall, and looks into the rooms that have their doors open. There’s a group of guys playing some video game in one room, another room with a different guy doing another keg stand, and a couple making out on someone’s bed. So far, there’s no sign of Lissa. And that’s a relief.

He reaches the community room, and sees a spot on the liquor table to his right to set the beer down. With his hands free, he checks his phone. There’s a message from Robin.

_You said it’s at VV right?_

He confirms, and she replies almost instantly.

_Ok. Thanks. I’ll be over in a little while._

Chrom tries to ignore the butterflies in his stomach. Honestly, to calm his nerves, he really wanted to have a drink. But he didn’t want Robin to see him drunk before they even really got the chance to know each other, so he decides to hold off. Even one drink could turn to many. Besides, at the rate Sully and Vaike were going, Chrom was probably going to have to rely on himself to get back home.

While he waits for her, he goes around to see who’s all there.

On the couch by the wall, Chrom spots Sumia and Cordelia. They’re in matching t-shirts and jean shorts, Sumia’s shirt pink, while Cordelia’s is blue. As always they’re wearing the matching wing earrings. Sumia is sitting on Cordelia’s lap while the latter glowers at any guy that comes by eyeing them up.

He walks over to them, about to say hello, when Sumia spots him first and gives a long wave.

“Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, Chrooommm!” She laughs when he looks at her, as if his face was the funniest thing in the world. “I was wondering--” She hiccups, “--if you were hereee!!”

Chrom tries to stifle a laugh, eying the cup in her hand. She was really out of it. No wonder Cordelia seemed so protective.

“Hey, Sumia,” he smiles to her, then faces Cordelia, “How much did she drink?”

Cordelia rolls her eyes, “Not a lot. She’s such a lightweight.”

“Am not!” She hiccups again. “I don’t even feel anything right now, promise! I’m good!”

“Sure.” Cordelia answers with a well-practiced sigh.

Sumia turns to her friend, ready to argue over it, but then stops. A bubbly smile plants on her face as she looks at Cordelia, like it was the first time she saw her that day.

She squeals, “Cordy, you look so pretty tonight!” She smacks the redhead’s hand playfully, a scandalized look on her face. “You were supposed to show me how you do your eyeliner, remember? Look at mine, it’s not nearly as straight!” She whips out her phone's camera to inspect it some more. 

“Your eyeliner looks fine!”

“Does not!”

“Does too!”

“Nuh uh, does not!”

The two begin to bicker further about their makeup and something else that happened on Wednesday that Chrom has no idea about. He takes that as his cue to leave.

He heads to the kitchen, and in the middle of the fleet of party food, is a very delighted Stahl.

He’s stuffing his face with a platter of nachos when he sees Chrom. Some cheese is stuck to his face, but he sticks his hand out for Chrom to grab.

“Hey, man,” he says when Chrom takes it, “How’s it going?”

“It’s alright. You weren’t kidding last time we talked. There really is a lot of people here.”

Stahl shakes his head, “Man, I told you. Crazy thing is, my buddies say they invited about thirty people tops, but there’s gotta be at least...fifty people here now, probably more.” He looks around at the crowded kitchen. There's a guy pouring ranch into the bowl of bean dip.

“But look at all this food that everyone brought! Check it out, someone brought some hummus, and at first I thought that was weird, but it’s cool, y’know? We all eat what we eat, but I tried some of it, and man! It’s really good! You should try it!” He picks up the hummus and offers it to Chrom, who declines.

He shrugs, and dips his nachos into the hummus gleefully, and Chrom tries his best not to wince at that.

“Anyways, did you see Cordelia? I feel kind of bad for leaving her with Sumia alone, as drunk as she is.”  
“Yeah, I saw them.” Chrom says as he leans over to get a view of the couch the two girls in question were sitting at. They were still exactly in place, though they now were trying to take a selfie together on Sumia’s phone.

“They seemed fine.”

“Oh, good. I promised her I’d make her a plate... And I will, once I’m done here.” He says mischievously, continuing to eat up the nachos.

Chrom checks his phone again, and sees there's still no update from Robin. He thinks about texting her to see if she needed any more help, but decides against it. If she stayed in Sable Court like she had said, then she should obviously know how to get her way to Vert Village.

He feels a bit of worry panging in his chest, but he blinks harshly, trying to shake the feeling away.

He is about to wave goodbye to Stahl to go meet back up with Sully and Vaike when he hears a voice ring out somewhere from the front that literally stops his heart mid-beat.

No.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

No! No! No!

He turns around as if his body was laced with lead.

By the entrance to the room, he spots Lissa, dressed in a little number that’s actually not that scandalous but enough to tip Chrom close to the edge of the Cliff of Rage. Ricken is behind her, looking absolutely ecstatic about his current whereabouts, taking in the sights and the general drunkenness and debauchery all around him.

Chrom sees Lissa accept a red cup from a guy who looks to be at least his age, and she smiles at it him as she does.

The hypothetical scenario he thought about earlier when he was with Emm was real! It was happening! Now!

Chrom has jumped off the Rage Cliff now; he’s doing a full on dive.

“Uh..? Chrom?” Stahl mutters to him from behind, sensing the menacing aura suddenly bouncing off of his friend.

But Chrom is already gone. With his signature tunnel vision, Chrom zips his way over to his sister.

She puts her lips to the cup. Laughing at whatever that loser just told her.

He's seeing red.

_Hurry, Chrom. Hurry._

She tips the cup upwards.

_Hurry, Chrom! HURRY!_

He smacks the cup right out of her hand just in time. It falls straight to the carpet, the drink pouring out to the already ruined floor. There are other cups littered on the ground as well. Definitely wasn’t the first knocked down drink of the night.

“What the?!--Chrom?!” Lissa sputters, looking at her brother with wide eyes. Ricken snaps back to attention at Chrom’s name, and yells excitedly, “Wow! Chrom’s here?! Hey, Chrom! I can’t believe I’m finally at a party with you!” He grins like he just won the lottery.

Chrom pays the tykes no mind; he’s whirling on the guy who gave Lissa the drink.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?! Giving her that?!”

“Hey man! Hey man! I didn’t know!” The guy puts his hands up in surrender. A pissed Chrom was a scary sight.

“I'm sorry! I-I didn’t know she was your….?”

“Sister!”

“Sister! Yeah! Sorry! So sorry!”

Chrom doesn’t even fully hear his apology, “She’s not even old enough to drink! She's eighteen! You've got a lot of nerve to be--” He is about to continue to rip into this poor guy, but he’s stopped by an equally fuming, if not more, Lissa.

“I KNEW IT! YOU LIAR!” She jabs her finger at him, stepping on her toes. Chrom spins to face her, surprised at how he was suddenly the one getting chewed out.

The catalyst of a man who started this screaming match takes the opportunity to get the fuck outta dodge. Ricken stands in place, mildly bemused. No one in the room seems to notice the two feuding siblings--outside of their general circle, the blaring music completely drowns them out.

“I knew you were going to be here! I thought you said, ‘you didn’t know about any parties this week’?!” She says in a dumb-voiced mocking tone, air quotes and all. “YOU BIG LIAR!”

“Yeah, I said that because it was none of your business! But don’t make this about me! You shouldn’t be drinking at all! Especially anything some random person just gives you!”

Lissa couldn’t have been that naive, to just take drinks from strangers?! Right?!

“He’s not a random stranger, Chrom! I know him!” She hollers, stomping her feet.“He was the one who told Ricken and I about this party!”

Ricken nods his head in affirmation.

“Yup, he was in our chemistry class back in high school.” He says, matter-of-factly. The only level voice between the two atomic bombs that were Chrom and Lissa.

She knew the guy? _They_ knew the guy? He was in their _class? In High School?_

What?!

Damn him for getting blocked off her Instagram. If he hadn’t been, maybe he would have known this. He shouldn’t have made a big fuss about that one picture she took at that festival last summer. She probably wouldn’t have blocked him. But it wasn’t his fault that he just wanted to make sure she was okay! Emmeryn always did the same for him--Hell, she was even his date to his first middle-school dance! What’s worse than that?!

Chrom closes his eyes, taking in a breath.

“Alright! It is what it is. Lissa, Go have your....fun, or something. I don’t care. Just don’t drink anything, please?”

She calms a bit, gets off the tips of her toes. “Okay... I promise.”

Chrom turns to Ricken, who’s watching a group do jello-shots. His eyes twinkle with curiosity.

“That goes for you too!”

“Oh! Yeah...right!” He replies with a jump, the twinkle in his eyes flickering out just a bit.

* * *

* * *

Chrom decides to sit the fuck down after the whole debacle with Lissa. He doesn’t want to bump into her again. This was her first time at a big party like this, and he didn’t want to encroach on that and ruin her experience. Hopefully, she would forget he was even there. Now he feels like a grumpy old man. 

From the couch where he sits, he mostly talks to a few (a lot) of the drunk students in the room with him, and watches some of the game’s highlights from the television. He doesn't feel like doing much else.

It’s nearly ten-thirty, and he still hasn’t heard a response from Robin. Did she get the time confused? He told her when it started. He doesn't get what could be keeping her.

Sully comes back around, and tells him that Vaike is currently on the roof of the building. She offers him a drink, but he turns it down. She gives him a look, downs it herself instead, and together they play a game of eight-ball pool by the window.

She leans over and lines her cue to the cue ball. She strikes it into the object balls. It hits perfectly in center.

“I thought you had a lady friend coming over.”

He frowns, “I did. The last I talked to her was a couple of hours ago.” He places his cue by the cue ball, which was now nearly in one of the table pockets.

“And what did she say?”

“That she’d be here.” He strikes it, and it hits a solid-colored six ball.

“Oh.” Sully says, as she watches the remaining balls scatter.

“Maybe she stood you up.”

Maybe she did.

Chrom doesn’t answer. Suddenly he’s feeling tired. He wants to go back to sitting down, but someone has taken his seat on the couch.

Sully notices her friend's shift in mood--and frankly, how bad he's playing pool--and puts down her cue. She walks over to him, and puts her hand on his shoulder. “Hey, don’t look so bummed. If that ditz doesn't show up, then that's on her.”

He just looks at her. He wonders if he looks as let down as he feels.

Sully brows push together. 

"Seriously, Chrom, cheer up. We won the homecoming game! Vaike did fucking amazing! And here you are moping about some girl, you definitely need a drink--come on, let's get you hammered or something."

She begins tugging on his arm, but he really doesn't want to move. He looks back up at the entrance wistfully, and Sully mentions something about him being a blockhead. 

But Chrom tunes her out. In fact, he tunes everything out, even the obnoxiously loud music--and the whoops and hollers and shouts and the girl who was screaming bloody murder that someone had stepped on her brand new shoes because _there_ \--by the door, _there,_ she’s _there._

She’s in a black jacket, her arms folded to her chest. Her hair wound back in a simple ponytail. She’s scanning the room, and she looks completely lost. She must be looking for him.

“Hey? Are you even listening, you big dork?” Sully reproaches, but the Chrom Tunnel Vision has returned, and he flicks his head toward Robin’s way.

“That’s her.” He says to Sully, and he’s smiling a big goofy smile before he can realize it.

“That’s who? What are you talking about?” Sully waves her hand in his face. She quiets when she follows his eyes and sees his target.

Chrom immediately heads his way over to Robin, leaving a puzzled Sully behind.

She notices him approaching, and gives a small smile at a face she recognizes. Chrom stares at her lashes, they seem so _long._

“Hello, there. Sorry I’m late.” She tells him.

“Don’t worry about it.” Chrom dismisses, feeling oddly out of breath. He thinks about how casually he says this to her, even though he spent the last two hours fretting over if she was even coming.

They look at each other for a moment, and she lowers her head to stare at her boots. This must be a habit of hers. As much of a habit that she wears boots so much in the first place.

“Have you been inside Vert Village before?” He asks.

“No.” She answers plainly, picking her head back up to look at him, “I don’t know anyone here. Besides you, of course.”

Well Chrom does. He knows quite a few. He flashes a grin, “I do. Would you like me to introduce you?”

* * *

* * *

The first person he introduces Robin to is Sully, who was standing right behind him. She shakes Robin’s hand very briefly, looking her up and down, but doesn’t say much to her. Whenever Chrom looks at Robin, in the corner of his eye he sees Sully staring at him with an expression that he can’t quite read. She gives him a knowing look right before she announces that she’s going to get more beer and takes off.

Then there’s Sumia, Cordelia, and Stahl, who are playing beer pong with a few others. Chrom notices that all of Sumia's cups have been substituted with soda. Robin compliments both girls on their hair, and they seemingly take an immediate liking to her.

In the back of his mind, Chrom hopes they don’t run into Vaike, who must be a trainwreck right now. If he was even still alive. He could have fallen off of the roof.

He would also like to avoid Lissa for the time being, if possible. Though he also silently hopes that she's alright.

Funnily enough, though Chrom was nervous about drinking around her the whole night, it’s Robin who mentions that she’d like to get a drink. So the two head back into the community room to the liquor table.

Chrom watches in slight fascination over what she’s going to get. She’d probably go for something simple, like a beer. Or maybe one of the hard sodas.

But Robin reaches right over the beer cases and the hard sodas...and picks up the half bottle of tequila at the center of the table.

Wow. The quiet ones.

She pours the tequila into a cocktail shaker and begins adding some lemon juice and soda to the the can.

Chrom’s brow furrows.

“...Are you making a margarita?”

Without looking at him, she grabs a bottle of rum and adds it to the shaker, “A Long Island, actually. Want me to make you one?” She reaches for the gin and the vodka.

Oh yes. Absolutely.

Chrom coughs, “Yeah. Thanks.”

She pours the finished drink out into two cups and hands him one. He stares at the dark liquid before asking, “Where’d you learn to mix drinks?”

She shrugs, “Just picked it up. I know a friend.”

“A bartender?” A nifty friend to have.

She looks at him, “Yeah.”

* * *

* * *

Robin makes an off-hand comment about the music being too loud, and Chrom jumps up, immediately asking if she’d rather go outside. She takes a swig of her drink, swirling the cup around before she agrees.

The pair begin making their way out to the back when Vaike suddenly appears down the hall. Well, not suddenly--Chrom certainly _heard_ him, but he was hoping they’d get out to the patio before Vaike and his posse barreled their way on over.

“YOOOO! CHROM! CHROOOOOOOOOOM!!!!” He yells.

Chrom freezes, trying to hide his grimace.

_Go away!_

But it’s too late, and Vaike--reeking absolutely of an unhealthy amount of alcohol and death itself--throws his sinewy arm around Chrom’s neck.

“Where...the FUCK have ya been, man?” He booms into Chrom’s ear.

Gods, he was so drunk. It’s not nearly as entertaining to be around a trashed Vaike when he himself was sober, Chrom realizes.

Vaike rambles on, “LOOK... the Vaike was on the fucking roof a bit earlier, man...and... ol Teach must’ve...shit….must’ve...drank about every GODDAMN thing in this HOUSE, BRO….it was... incredible, man. Shit, I might just puke."

How enlightening.

Chrom tries to peel Vaike’s arm off of him, but he keeps going, wrapping the beefy arm around Chrom’s poor neck even tighter.

"The whole time...the whole time Teach was chugging, I was wonderin' when you'd show up. We were 'sposed to knock one down together. But I GET IT, you're scared to lose and all..."

Shut up, Vaike!

After a minute longer of his rambling woes on how he had to drink a ridiculous amount of alcohol without his favorite drinking buddy, his focus clears, and he finally notices a quiet Robin off to the side observing him harass Chrom.

Vaike does a double-take at her, looking as if he just met the love of his life, and Chrom’s heart drops.

Oh boy.

“Well...Damn.” He says, suddenly a bit more coherent, eyebrows rising, looking Robin up and down. She keeps her arms crossed to her chest.

“Never seen you before….what’s YOUR name? He licks his lips disgustingly.

She doesn’t answer, just flicks her eyes to Chrom. “Is he your friend?”

His pet monkey, actually. That needed to go back to the zoo.

“Yes,” Chrom answers with shame, “This is Vaike.” He adds with a sigh, “Vaike, this is Robin.”

Vaike gives Robin a large, unfiltered smile. “Ya sure are pretty, Miss Robin. Nice to meet ya.”

To Chrom’s surprise she actually smiles in return. Though it is, as usual, rather small. “Nice to meet you, as well.”

Chrom finally shrugs Vaike’s heavy arm off of him and secretly gives him a glare when Robin looks down to check her phone that hopefully, _hopefully,_ his drunk ass will understand--to go somewhere. Any fucking where. Chrom didn’t care. Go back to the damn roof.

It takes him a minute, his glossy eyes staring at Chrom in a stupor, but when it dawns on him, Vaike gives a wicked smile. He whispers, and it’s not really much of a whisper, “Okay. Alright..." He looks at Robin, looks at her jeans. "You're a lucky bastard, Chrom. But bet Teach can get laid tonight, too!”

Chrom is about to wring his neck. Killing him would literally be easier than dealing with this.

But he’s off, back to stumbling to his football team, jumping into one of the players who struggles to catch him.

Chrom glances back at Robin, praying that she didn’t hear what Vaike just said.

But she’s still staring at her phone, smiling at it even, as she types something.

Thank Naga and everything above.

* * *

* * *

There’s a small bonfire going on outside, and the two of them sit in small plastic chairs a little ways from the fire. They’ve since moved on from the Long Islands that Robin had made and settle for drinking some of the beers in the cooler in front of them, both being too lazy to go back to the liquor table inside.

Chrom decides that he wants to match her in drinking--if only so that she didn’t feel insecure about it, but he quickly realizes he might have made a mistake. Unbelievably, as small as she was, the woman was seemingly a bottomless pit.

He’s opening his fourth can and knows he’s well on his way to getting drunk when she asks him, “So, what are you majoring in, Chrom?”

“...Social work.” He answers, and drinks.

“Really?” She utters, and the surprise is evident in her voice.

He flickers a smirk at her, “Is that shocking?”

She laughs, opening up what Chrom thinks might be her fifth can--he needs to hurry it up-- and retorts, “No, not really...Okay, maybe a little.”

“Why? Did you think I’d be in like, kinesiology or something?”

She doesn’t reply, just looks a little sheepish.

Wow.

He gives her an incredulous look, “Oh, okay! Judgmental, much?”

“No, no! That’s not it! I just...don’t know a lot of guys in that field, is all. Not macho enough for them, I guess.”

“Well, yeah. It wasn’t what I initially set out on, if I'm being truthful.” He thinks of being in Emmeryn’s office earlier.

“Is that right?”

“Mmhmm. But I don’t mind. I’ve always seen myself helping people in some form or another, so it works.”

“I see.” her voice is soft. “Well, that’s a good thing, I think.”

“I do, too.” He finishes the beer, and feels his vision blur just a bit. “What’s yours?”

“Criminal Justice.”

“Really now? Guess we’d work hand in hand.”

She laughs again, “I guess we would.”

* * *

* * *

They talk and drink for the rest of the night, mainly asking things about each other. Chrom asks her if is she works, and she tells him she doesn't. When she asks him the same, he tells her he worked a bit throughout college but quit to focus more on his classes and helping his older sister, who he plans to work for soon. By the time he looks at his phone, it’s two in the morning, and he has to stare at it for quite a minute to even comprehend what he was looking at, because he was drunk as hell.

He’s envious of her though, she looks perfectly composed, sitting there with her legs crossed. If he so much as got up, he’d knew he’d be landing face first.

How the hell did she do it?

“I don’t,” he begins, trying to remember what he was going to say, wobbling in his seat a little, “I don’t know how you’re so…..together right now.”

She snickers at him, “I’m not a lightweight. I can hold my alcohol.”

From what he saw tonight she could hold her alcohol and then some.

“Hey, I’m no lightweight either!”

He feels a very strong urge to laugh. But for some odd reason, he feels like it should be a secret, so he covers his face with his fist when the laugh bubbles out.

She’s looking deep into his eyes, “You are most definitely drunk.” Her brow raised in amusement.

“I knowwww.” He tells her, then he sputters, laughing some more.

She just shakes her head and tosses the last can she had into the black trash bag on the floor.

She’s so pretty, Chrom just wants to run his hands through that luminous white hair. Her hair reminds him of the stars, or the clouds. Imagine walking around looking like you had a piece of the sky with you always. Imagine being this lovely. He needs to let her know this.

“Your hair is beautiful, by the way.”

“Thank you.” She smiles and looks down, fumbling with the zipper on her jacket sleeve.

Something tells him he might kick himself for that later. But he doesn’t care about the Chrom of later, right now. He just wants to keep looking at her.

But she’s not smiling anymore, her face actually in a frown. Why is she frowning?

“Chrom,” she says, and he thinks of how his name sounds in her voice, “You don’t live on campus, do you?”

“I don’t.” He confirms. Then it dawns on him.

Oh shit.

He looks around, his eyesight blurring as he did. A lot of the people were leaving, Sully and Vaike were nowhere to be found. From the patio window he can see Stahl passed out on the couch. A whole pizza on his lap.

Damn. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t planning to drink tonight! How was he supposed to get home?

He could catch an Uber or a taxi, but he really didn’t want to leave his car. Lissa could drive him back, but he didn’t even know where the hell she was. He also thought she was a terrible driver. She sped just about all the time. On top of that, it would be humiliating for him to call her to ask her to drive him back home because he was drunker than a skunk. She’d never let him live it down.

All of this thinking proves to be too much for the inebriated Chrom, and he slumps in his seat.

He groans, putting his head between his legs. Arms dangling to the sides.

Maybe he would just sleep out here. He could probably sit in the bonfire embers to keep warm.

Robin watches him closely. “You okay?” She asks lamely, not even sure of what kind of response she wanted from him.

At her voice, Chrom immediately sits up, he holds onto his head to steady himself.

“I know! I could sleep back at Argent Hall! I used to stay there in my first year. My key card still works.”

“Okay.” Robin says, nodding her head. “That sounds like a plan.” She gets up, and puts her hands in her pockets.

“Guess this is where we part ways.”

Chrom wants to tell her something before she leaves--probably to thank her for coming--so he rises out of his seat to face her.

The minute he is standing upright, everything feels off-kilter, and he stumbles over, nearly falling into the dying bonfire.

Robin dashes over and grabs his arm, trying to keep him steady. She kneels and holds on to him firmly.

“Whoa! Easy there!”

“It’s okay.” He says, almost immediately, “I’m good, promise!” He vaguely thinks he sounded like Sumia.

“No, you’re not.” She tries to keep the amusement off her face and voice. “Look, you’ll probably end up in a ditch somewhere if you walk there on your own, so let me at least help you get there.”

That was fair.

She puts his arm over her shoulder and neck to support him and his weight. Then she rises up, taking him along with her.

“W-wait!” Chrom stutters.He feels a little dizzy at the sudden movement. What did she think she was doing? If she tried to carry him they’d certainly topple over!

“Relax,” She hisses, rolling her eyes a bit. “I know what I’m doing.”

Chrom colors a bit, his own coordination too disoriented to really stop her.

Putting her foot out first, Chrom follows her lead, and slowly they make their way down to Argent Hall.

They mostly walk in silence, Chrom too focused on walking straight to open his mouth. He hears a light giggle from her and turns to face her, his nose brushing the top right-side of her bangs.

“What’s so funny?”

She looks up at him as if she’s debating on telling him, then states it simply, “Nothing, really. It’s just...you look like you’re trying so hard to keep your balance right now.” Another giggle rises out, “You really are a lightweight.”

“I am not!” He gasps, “You’re the one who drinks like a two-hundred pound Feroxi sailor!”

She almost doubles over in laughter at this, and the two of them nearly fall into a bush on the side of the pavement.

The look on her face as they try to correct their footing gives him the slightest hint that she might actually be a bit tipsy as well, just better at concealing it. (And still far more of a harder drinker then he could ever hope to be.)

He gets a glimpse of the slopes of her cleavage jutting out through her jacket and camisole. He tries to avert his eyes, but notices a familiar shimmering glint reflecting off of her skin.

“Hey, is that glitter?”

Her expression falls, the smile disappearing instantly. She looks at him with a guarded look.

Chrom doesn’t even notice. His attention already going back to steadying his wobbling feet.

“I’ve been finding a lot of glitter on myself too, lately. It’s weird.” He mutters. “Must be in the streamers everyone’s been popping this week.”

She doesn’t say anything.

They reach the front gates of Argent Hall, and he slides his key card into the lock.

They walk through the foyer and the main hall before she asks him where it was he actually planned to go.

Part of him thinks that Vaike might actually be dead, so he doesn’t want to check his old room, and he can’t just barge into anyone else’s either.

“It’s fine...We’ll just...go to the common room.”

They head there, and by some stroke of luck it’s actually empty, though it's filthy. Covered in all kinds of party trash. She helps him over to the couch, and he detaches himself from her and promptly belly-flops face first onto the worn out thing.

She nudges him, telling him to move his head so he doesn’t suffocate in his sleep.

“Alright.” He slurs, and he is so, _so_ tired. His body feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. He wants someone to turn the heater off. It’s burning up in here.

“Can you turn the heater off?”

She glances at the wall where the thermostat was, “It’s not on.”

“Oh.”

His eyes begin to droop a little, and sleep sounds like the best thing ever in that moment.

He hears her begin to walk away, and he can’t open his eyes to save his life, but he says, “Thanks for coming, Robin. I appreciate it.” In his head he's a lot more coherent. It definitely came out a lot more slurred.

When she answers her voice sounds a few feet away, “Thank you for inviting me, Chrom. I had a lot of fun. Good night. See you later.”

He then hears her boots click down the hall, and briefly wonders why she didn’t turn off the light.

But hearing her say that makes him glad. He falls asleep with a big drunken smile on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're still trudging along! gotta get the wheels on this thing moving. it's turning a little faster now, though!
> 
> as for chrobin--after this they're going to be hanging out with each other A LOT more now. the party really broke the ice for them, and we are on our way to the beginnings of a fast new friendship! the dynamic idiot duo is back in action!
> 
> happy holidays! and as always, thanks for reading!


End file.
